


Frostbite

by meilimango



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Ficlet, Fluffy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24856402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meilimango/pseuds/meilimango
Summary: Ever since she could remember, Robin has always hated her hands.
Relationships: Chrom & My Unit | Reflet | Robin, Chrom/My Unit | Reflet | Robin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 101





	Frostbite

Robin hates her hands. 

Her left is brittle, calloused with dry patches and cold spots that only grow colder as the winter weather worsens. She hates how her skin never fails to crack or chip whenever she flips a page of her tome or opens an atlas. 

Her right is stained with a stark shadow of a deep orchid, marked with three pairs of eyes on its dorsal side. She hates how she doesn’t know what it means.

She has always been conscious of them. Even in her first memory, when an outstretched hand reached for hers on that fateful day in the fields near Southtown, she realized it then— how ugly her hands were. 

She remembers when the dear princess took her to the shops in Ylisstol for the first time. As their tactician and newfound friend, Lissa had asked her what she’d like to have as her own— to name anything that would suit her fancy. 

_Gloves,_ she had said. Not a tome, not a sword, but _gloves._

The sharp leaden colour easily complimented the darkness of her coat, and with it, it hid her every insecurity. It was her only pair, and she took care of them with her whole heart.

That was, until, a Risen ripped them clean through with a searing sword.

She stares downcast at her hands, phalanges scarred over from the blow earlier that day. It was an accident on her part— her reflexes only had enough time to defend as the enemy snuck behind the blinds of their leader and prince. It wasn’t a deep cut, but it was enough to break through the tome in her hand and the fabric of her gloves. She’s lucky her fingers didn’t come off with them.

She sits idly by the camp, away from the tents and its sleeping inhabitants. The glistening lake before her shines under the paleness of the moonlit sky. She’s glad, however, because underneath the haze of the night, she can’t see the imperfections of her hands all that clearly anyway.

“I thought I’d find you here,” a familiar voice calls her from behind, shattering the illusion of her thoughts. 

“Chrom,” Robin says with a smile, albeit a bit weakly.

The prince joins her on the cold grass, plopping on his rear with a mix of a sigh and a grunt. “You’re up pretty late,” he says. They haven’t been able to chat by themselves lately, besides their time spent at the war table, and even then their talks were brief. He crosses his legs comfortably and places his hands behind him in a loll, looking at her with a curious smile in his eyes. She can’t help but smile back. 

“Just thinking, really,” she responds. Her voice comes out unconvincingly feeble, even to Robin. She clears her throat and tries again. “Was there something you needed?”

He shifts, straightening his back. “Not really,” Chrom answers, “just checking up on you.”

Robin cocks her head at his words, parting her lips to question, but he beats her to it. “You’ve been awfully quiet since our last run-in with the Risen. Is something wrong?”

She throws her hands up, shaking her head. 

“O-of course not,” she stutters out, but the marks on the back of her hands catch her eyes and she instantly balls them into fists, hiding them under her sleeves. He stares at her, blankly. 

Robin grimaces, shrugging off his concern. “Really, I’m fine. Just cold is all,” she admits despondently, and although that is only partly true, she hopes the shadows of the night sky mask her diffidence. 

What she doesn’t notice is how Chrom’s eyes follow hers as she plays with the hem of her sleeves.

“Your hands must be freezing,” he says, softly. She flinches, tugging at her robes to cover said deformities. He leans forward, however, turning towards her. His own hands come into view, and in the next second, he pulls at his gloves. “You’re not used to the Feroxian winters, huh? Then again, I don’t think you’d be human if you were,” he chuckles. 

Wordlessly, he reaches for her hands and in wonder, she lets him take them. His are warm and comforting, soft and supple— nothing _remotely_ like hers. She feels the need to retract her arm, but his grip is firm and reassuring. 

He slips his gloves on her hands with a gentle grace, just as he would if handling something as precious as the gems of the Fire Emblem.

“We can’t have our tactician’s hands falling off from frostbite now, can we?”

She blinks at him, her gaze falling to her hands in his. Chrom’s are much larger than Robin’s, and the overhang of the gloves’ fabric makes her hands look absolutely massive. When she looks back at the prince, his hand travels to the nape of his neck, a boyish look glittering in his eyes. 

Despite herself, Robin giggles.

First, in a quiet frenzy, then even more so when Chrom blushes, looking to her with a start. Not a moment later and Chrom joins in, and for the next few minutes, the pair finds themselves laughing together breathlessly. 

In the back of her mind, Robin wonders how lucky she really is— to have such a person in her life who could lead an army and Halidom with his head held high, however heavy the burden on his shoulders may be, and still have time to make sure that _she’s_ okay.

It’s silly, really, but she’ll bask in the glow of his company for just a little while longer.

She looks down at her hands once more, the blanket of warm Ylissean fabric wrapped around palms and fingertips. It’s true that ever since she could remember, Robin has always hated her hands. They’re calloused, scarred, and icy-cold in ways that shouldn’t be possible for any human to withstand. 

But under the cool breeze of the winter’s night and the boisterous sounds of their shared laughter, she can’t thank her hands enough.

  
  



End file.
